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Dry Riding Weather

You may have seen these ghostly wave-type clouds over the Plains before. The official name of the cloud is ‘undulatus asperatus‘ and is currently being lobbied as a new type of cloud classification. If approved this will be the first cloud formation to be added since 1951 into the World Meteorological Organization.

Hayward, WI Undulatus Asperatus Photo courtesy: Paul Schroeder

The extraordinary heat may have ended across Minnesota but many areas are still sweating it out. This weekend in Michigan, for example, three cities (Lansing, Muskegon, Holland) had the hottest temperatures ever recorded that either tied or surpassed Dust Bowl-era records.

Front pages talking about heat from newseum.org

Of course the first six days of July were some of the hottest Minnesota has ever seen. Check out the official highs from July 1-6:

Courtesy: NWS Twin Cities

While this heat was intense it didn’t come close to surpassing the consecutive heat records for the area.

Courtesy: NWS Twin Cities

Minneapolis had 5 consecutive days at or above 95° making it good enough for 4th place. The most consecutive days at or above 95° was 13 back in 1936 (the Dust Bowl summer).

You can read more about the climatological significance of the July heat at the NWS Twin Cities.

When I first moved to Minnesota I was shocked to learn that people can surf in the Great Lakes. As a girl who grew up vacationing at the Jersey Shore the thought of surfing white caps on Lake Superior boggled my mind. I came to find out that with a persistent wind at the right direction the waves on Lake Superior can get pretty gnarly.

As this video shows the February Leap Year Blizzard of 2012 was one of those storms that people wait around for all year. When the next big storm arrives be sure to check out this cool Great Lakes Current Map:

CycleCast

No big storms or offensive heat this week. Warm and dry weather will continue with temperatures gradually increasing into the weekend. This type of quiet weather pattern sure does make my job a lot easier…